Text copyright © 2014 by Laury Falter

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.

  First Edition: January 2014

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  eISBN 978-0-9890362-3-8

  RESURRECTION

  The Apocalypse Chronicles

  LAURY FALTER

  “Man is one of countless millions of species and, like all the rest, is subject to the struggle for existence and the competition of the fittest to survive.”

  —WILL DURANT, HEROES OF HISTORY, PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY [2001]

  PERSONAL NOTE

  I lost count of the weeks since the outbreak. We reached the first winter, and that is all I can tell you. Nearly every person I knew before it happened has perished, in one way or the other. From what we’ve been told all major cities have fallen, governments disbanded, nearly the entire world has been affected, or more specifically, infected. My first journal on how the outbreak began was lost but this notebook was found in the offices of Ezekiel Labs and given to me. Ezekiel Labs is the site where the T1L2 virus was first bred and where I lost my original journal, so it seems fitting that it be where I continue my account.

  CHAPTER 1

  I NEVER SAW MS. KREMIL’S BODY HIT THE FLOOR. My fixation on the person who landed on top of her blinded me and, instinctively, I began matching his size and posture to indicate he was Manuel, the tall, insistent Spaniard and sole person alive who was aware of our small group of survivors stowed away on the sixteenth floor of Ezekiel Labs. He was also the only one in our sparse group who had ventured beyond the locked door that was now propped wide open, seeming to beckon the world beyond, or what was left of it anyway. So it didn’t come as too great a shock when the person on top of Ms. Kremil paused his thrashing just long enough for me to get a good look at his face and in the dim light of the candles lining the hallway, I confirmed it was Manuel. Was being the key-word in that examination. Whoever he was when he’d snuck out that door a few hours ago, he’d come back through it a different person. The fact that he commenced gnawing on Ms. Kremil’s shoulder proved it.

  Then the sound of my name cut through the grunts and frantic footsteps of those coming up behind Manuel, mixing with the screams of the survivors not infected with the T1L2 virus as they fled behind us. Still, I heard it as plainly as if it were whispered directly into my ear in the silence that had just been broken a few minutes earlier. The deep, mesmeric rumble of the voice that spoke it carried my head in its direction, away from the chaos at the door. And then it came again…

  “Kennedy!”

  I blinked, clearing my thoughts, and there he stood, his ruffled hair bordering a wide, rugged face that was equally alert and strikingly handsome at the same time. It was the face of the man I love, the one who had given me a reason to live again, who had saved me from the jaws of death and coaxed me to fight.

  “Harrison…”

  His face, so strong and determined, was set in place, the muscles protruding from the clench of his teeth as he tensed from the situation at the door. He wasn’t happy about something. Deep down a quiet voice told me that it was because I hadn’t moved from my stance just inside the office where we’d been sleeping a few minutes earlier.

  His eyes swung back to me. In them, I saw a mixture of frustration, concern, tension, and planning, all of which melded into one strong, direct focus. “The hallway circles around,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction of the door…and the infected about to flood through it. “It leads to a stairwell. Take it to the first floor.”

  I turned around to check whether Manuel had broken through the thick linen of Ms. Kremil’s suit but I never got far enough to verify. Sensing our time had run out, Harrison’s hands gripped my arms and moved me to the side where I was given a clear path toward the destination he mentioned.

  “We need to get Ms. Kremil,” I argued.

  “Not we. Me! You go!” His eyes flicked back over my shoulder before widening. “GO!”

  When I hesitated, his voice rose. “GO! We’ll meet you there!”

  He was eerily convincing, and insanely confident, even as he headed toward the flood of Infected beginning to struggle through the door. Harrison’s build was larger than the typical high school senior, broader in the shoulders with robust thighs and with arms carved into bands of muscle. But those he headed for dwarfed him, and that sight kept me from moving.

  With the force of a tank, he met the first Infected and his body stopped, reminding me of watching my father’s buddies trying to push a broken down car up a hill. But just like they had done, the object gave way against the pressure of their muscles and steadily, reluctantly shifted backwards. The greatest difference here was that the car wasn’t trying to bite at its resistance. Harrison maneuvered around the snapping jaws and shoved the man’s body into the hallway until he and those behind the man had stumbled into the stairwell. Finally, his hand came around the edge of the door and slammed it closed, directly on the faces of his attackers.

  Without bothering to look in my direction and confirm I had remained in place, he yelled, “Get outta here!” Then he was kneeling over Manuel’s thick, brawny body, his massive hands coming around Manuel’s shoulders and hauling him off Ms. Kremil.

  “GO!” Harrison grunted and I knew it was again directed at me.

  Still, I couldn’t follow his command.

  I was never very good at that part anyways.

  Instead, my head snapped around in search of the rifle I’d left in the office behind me.

  It was gone.

  A jolt of fear ran through me.

  The Infected were stopped by only one thing…cutting off circulation to the brain. A bullet was an effective means to accomplish this but without a gun and without a round in the chamber of that gun, I was acting on impulse and a prayer. I readjusted my focus on Harrison, who seemed concentrated on peeling Manuel off Ms. Kremil. The frown on his face, I knew somehow, was a reaction to me. It was more of a result of being antagonized than from exertion.

  And still I couldn’t move.

  His expression remained in place until Manuel was incapacitated, his neck twisted from the wrench of Harrison’s arms, preventing the blood flow that kept the Infected going.

  Harrison, barely fazed from the exertion, jerked his head up and found me standing where he’d left me. His frown deepened.

  I opened my mouth to explain and couldn’t find the words.

  It didn’t matter. He was already on his feet, pulling Ms. Kremil up with him. Then they were running toward me, or really Harrison was dragging her with him toward me, her feet sliding from one side of the ankle to the other as she attempted to gain a foothold and failed.

  It was then I noticed the banging against the metal door behind them, the one Harrison had closed seconds earlier. Apparently, Harrison heard it too because he yelled at me again.

  “RUN!”

  It was either the fact that I’d overcome my daze or because he was doing it with me but I found my legs lifting into a sprint, my muscle remembering what it felt like to haul my average built, fairly lean body. They carried me down the now vacant hallway, the rest of the survivors having disappeared to safety. They were gone, emptied out, and I realized as my feet slapped the carpet and carried me past the rows of vacant offices on both sides of me that the crushing silence I perceived was because we were the last ones. Soon the hammering of my heart filled my ears and all I heard was the rapid pound-pound-pound-pound of it as I came across the emergency stairwell Harrison had insisted I take. My body slammed into the cold, hard metal bar that would unlatch the exit and I shoved hard. It swung open, crashing loudly against the concrete wall behind it, sending an echo down the horizontal chamber.

  The damn pounding in my ears blocked any announcement of Harrison behind me so I slowed my breath to calm my heart. And quickly, nearly instantaneously, I was consumed by the silence. I couldn’t hear any footsteps. There was no heavy breathing. No sign of Harrison at all. And my muscles tightened. My lungs stopped. I turned my head only to find the hallway vacant.

  One foot unconsciously stepped back in the direction I’d come from and my body leaned toward Harrison. And then I felt it…the steady tremble in the floor, making its way through my combat boots and up along my calves, rattling me with nervous excitement because the vibration meant one thing to me…

  He was coming.

  He rounded the corner and came into view against the dark angle of the walls, ducked, massive, and carrying a flailing body. Tucked beneath one arm, pinned to his chest, was a faint Ms. Kremil.

  I drew in a sigh of relief as he called out, “Stairwell, Kennedy.” His tone was flat, without any indication of surprise that I had stayed behind. He had expected to see me here, which brought a smile to my face and the return of a frown to his. But our reactions faded when Ms. Kremil spoke.

  “No,” she groaned. “Stop…Stop.”

  Reaching the door, she nearly shoved Harrison aside and collapsed against the wall. Her knees buckled and she slid to the ground in a ball. “I can’t…” she said, her face constrained,